Why Do We Care? (Or Do We?)

The gossip mill has been agog with rumors that Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony are headed for divorce. Apparently they plan to announce their divorce right after singing a Valentine’s Day duet at Madison Square Garden.

Jen and Marc, what went wrong? Did Jen finally realize that Marc is nowhere near her level of attractiveness? Did Marc get mad that Jen let the world know she is but a mere mortal? And do we really give a crap whether their marriage will stand the test of time?

I have been rocked by celebrity divorce news in the past. Reese and Ryan. Tea and David. And yes, Brad and Jen. But I’m kind of over it. Perhaps there have just been too many this year. Or perhaps I have decided that celebrities just aren’t cut out for normal married life and should just live together until they meet someone new on the set.

What about you? Are you desperate to know whether Jen and Marc will kick each other to the curb? Do you think celebrity marriages are more fragile than normal marriages? Do you care?

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Oh, My!

Chris Dane Owens is the new Fabio. And he sings.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDyDz8WeiM4&hl=en&fs=1]

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Straight to DVD: The Wave of the Future, or Still Just Code for "A Crappy Movie"?

Matthew McConaughey’s newest flick, Surfer Dude, skipped the theaters and went straight to DVD. (Read more about the movie at DVD Talk.)

Just a few years ago, straight to video meant the distributor didn’t think the movie could hope to recoup the marketing costs of a theatrical release because it was so bad. These films were what I called part of the New Deal for Hollywood. They kept writers, actors, and crews working for the sake of working. Every now and then, a gem would slide through, though I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

Then Disney started making straight-to-video sequels to their animated blockbusters. This move allowed them to capitalize on the name recognition of the originals without incurring huge new marketing expenses. I’m not a Disney movie fan, but my gut feeling is that these movies were of the same caliber as the originals without the theatrical buzz.

Straight-to-video sequels are the norm in other genres. The Starship Troopers franchise continues on DVD, though I’ve heard the sequels suck. (I am a huge fan of the original movie.)

Steven Soderbergh tested a multi-platform release for his movie Bubble in 2005. It was a box office failure, but a very bold experiment.

During Arctic Blast 2008, I watched a lot of movies that I had never heard of but that were quite good. Evening is the best of the lot. It had a good life on the film festival circuit and a modest life in the theaters, showing on 977 of an estimated 18,000 screens in the U.S. It would have been a good candidate for a multi-platform release, as its cast–Toni Collette, Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close, Claire Danes–has good name recognition.

I mentioned yesterday that it is hard for me to get to the theater to see movies since we got our dogs. I prefer to watch a movie at home where I can pause for potty breaks and rewind if I missed something in the cacophony that is caused by two 100-pound dogs hovering near two years in age. I would have bought Sex and the City when it was released in the summer of this year. Instead, I rented it from Netflix about a month after its DVD release because I was no longer excited about it. There’s $20 of mine New Line will never see.

Could the multi-platform release be the wave of the future, as Robert Cort argues for in a 2006 editorial? Will we see the theater die to be replaced by straight-to-DVD for all movies? Or will we continue in the same business model, with big-budget movies released in the theater that fewer and fewer people still attend and all other movies relegated to the DVD shelves?

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New Year's Resolutions

No matter how many times I resolve not to make New Year’s Resolutions, I find that every year I just can’t help myself. New Year’s Day just brings out that sense of fresh beginnings that make me want to start everything fresh and new.

In addition to the uzhe (lose weight, get my finances in order, drink more water), I have a few pop culture resolutions.

I resolve to:

1. Keep up-to-date on my favorite shows. I shudder to think how long it has been since I watched How I Met Your Mother, and mid-season hiatus is only partly responsible.
2. Post five days a week, even when I’m working on other projects.
3. See more movies. You know that I talk mostly about tv. That is because I rarely see movies–since we got the dogs, movies just became much less important. But I like movies, and I like to see them in the theater.
4. Keep the WOW playing within reason. In So I Married an Axe Murderer, Charlie’s father hated the Colonel and KFC because the put a substance in the chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly. World of Warcraft is even more insidious. I don’t know how they make a visual medium that addictive, but my hat is off to the folks at Blizzard. Well done.

Any other ideas?

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The Holidays Have Sapped My Will to Do Anything

Between the pending holiday and the cabin fever that is Arctic Blast 2008, I am completely unable to do anything productive. Thus, I’m giving myself permission to take the week off. Of course, now that I’ve gotten permision, that’s when I’ll be struck by inspiration and think of something to post about.

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Women Have to Lose Weight, Men Have to Gain It

Taylor Lautner is bulking up in hopes of keeping his job as Jacob for New Moon, the sequel to Twilight. According to People, he has gained 19 pounds so far, and is looking to put on another 10.

It’s always so funny to me when I read about male stars having to gain weight for their roles. Typically, we hear that women must lose weight to even be considered for roles, let alone get a specific one. I used to watch the show “Unscripted” on HBO, and the women on that show had to take ridiculous levels of criticism of their appearances that the men didn’t get. Jennifer Hall went on a crash diet just so her agent would send her on auditions.

If you don’t remember “Unscripted,” don’t worry. It didn’t bring the number of viewers HBO wanted so it was not picked up for a second season. It was a fictionalized reality show about struggling actors. It was produced by George Clooney, Matt Adler, Grant Heslov, Steven Soderbergh, and others. It starred Bryan Greenberg of One Tree Hill fame and Krista Allen. I know Krista Allen from Smallville and What About Brian, but apparently she was in some Emmanuelle movies and was trying to move beyond that image. I really enjoyed how they worked the actors’ real roles into the program.

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It Is Cold

The Pacific Northwest is blanketed by a sheet of ice, and we’ve got a new storm system bringing us a nice coat of freezing rain to sit on top of it. And we don’t have any hope for a thaw until next week. We are not well equipped to handle this, and I’m working online instead of in the office today.

I have learned that local television is devoting more time to “Arctic Blast” coverage than they did to the election results last month. I have been reminded that nothing decent comes on during the day, unless you are a soap opera junkie or a game show fiend. I have also learned that a mid-December cold wave is the stupidest time for your furnace to go out, as I wait for the furnace repairman to save us and the dogs from the spectre of a space-heater fire. (I’m heeding the warnings from the local news not to bring my barbecue inside to heat the place up. Of course, if I truly needed that warning, I would hope that one of my lovely readers would turn stalker, find me, and put me out of the world’s misery. I would obviously be too stupid to live.)

So, I’m cuddling up with a blanket and a couple 105-pound dogs to catch up on tv and pop culture. (I was out of the country last week, on a cruise to Mexico, so the cold is hitting me a little harder than it might normally.)

TTYL

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Oscar Season Movies to See

This time of year, I look forward to the smart, sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic films released just in time for Oscar consideration. Most of the time, holiday blockbusters just don’t do it for me. Let’s see, how best to say this? I didn’t need bad reviews of Four Christmases to know I wouldn’t go see it.

I am, however, a complete sucker for dogs and Jennifer Aniston, so I will be seeing Marley & Me.

These are the movies I’m looking forward to this holiday season.

• Milk: All I’ve ever heard about this story is the infamous Twinkie defense. (Yes, I know the defense attorneys didn’t really argue that Twinkies made him do it. But that phrase is a huge part of our lexicon.) So I can’t wait to get a better idea of what really happened to Harvey Milk. And, I don’t think an actor has to be a metrosexual to play gay.
• Cadillac Records: Again, this is a film I am interested in because it will give me more information. I know nothing about Etta James except the song At Last. And, I’ve learned from the previews that she apparently liked the drugs a bit.
• Frost/Nixon: I was way too young during Watergate to even know what a president was, let alone to care if he lied. And I’m pretty much over that era. But I love movies about journalists back when journalists did their jobs. All the President’s Men was fascinating, and I see this movie as a good complement to that film.

What movies are you looking forward to this winter?

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Guilty Pleasures

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Update on the 10:00 Hour

Jeff Zucker’s pronouncement yesterday that NBC might but its primetime hours was just greasing the skids for the real news: Jay Leno will move his show to 10:00 five mights per week.

This definitely works for me. I don’t watch Leno at 11:30, and I likely won’t watch him at 10:00. And it sounds like it will work for NBC, saving them $13 million per week in programming costs. How long will it be until ABC and CBS follow suit?

Read more about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/media/09leno.html?_r=2&hp

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